No company wants to admit to design flaws and Epson is no exception to that rule. I have found over the years that misleading, not facing problems, ignoring customers, and even lying is the guarantee to doom. I see so many companies in the inkjet field aiming on maintaining ignorance in their customer base. People can handle the truth mainly if they feel you are going to do something about it and take them into consideration. We have Epson printers running with heads that are over 8 years old. If we were running a Canon, we would have had to have at least 16 heads replaced by this time. I do not understand why companies selling printers will not discuss maintenance.

Hi Scott, for clarity - let me be clear :-). I don't believe we are dealing with "design flaws". I think we are dealing with the evolution of technology in which choices are made to achieve this or that objective, and in doing so, something else may have to give. This is not unusual, and part of "progress". This is leading-edge nano-technology that is not only totally merchantable, but totally marvelous - we should not forget that. Nor do I believe in this instance that Epson is guilty of misleading, not facing problems, ignoring customers or lying. My experience has been that they do none of that; in fact they provide excellent support, especially to machines that are in warranty, but in various circumstances even thereafter, and they have always been amenable to go the extra mile, again depending on the circumstances. This is a company whose products I have always felt very confident and comfortable purchasing, regardless of the issues which do arise.

Your comment on the Canons is really interesting, and illustrates the point I was making at at the very end of my previous post, about how different technologies handle clogs differently.

As for discussing maintenance - they do: there is a whole section of the manual devoted to it. As usual, what they chose to discuss reflects what they feel safe to recommend as user-accessible maintenance. For legal, confidentiality and perhaps other reasons, manufacturers are normally very conservative about how far they will take users down the maintenance route. I don't fault them for that, as long as when trouble happens there is a sure and reasonable route to clearing it up. So far so good - my experience. As well, I'd add this is clearly an avenue where third-party service and materials providers can play a role in all those situations where voiding a warranty would not be a risk - unless the owner wants to take that risk. For example, I may well have voided the 3rd year of my AppleCare warranty on my MacBook Pro by pulling out the HD and the optical drive and self-installing two high capacity SSD drives from OWC using their superb instructions. The performance boost is unbelievable and it all works like a charm. Apple Computer would never in a million years have supported me doing this, and again, no blame - I can readily see why. A minor slip of the wrist and I could have snapped a very thin vital little wire connecting one of the drive bays to the motherboard. That's a risk beyond their control so they won't take it. Fundamental principle number one of risk allocation.

Hi All Just a summary of what i have already posted to date...hope it helps !1. Pigment ink includes resins and pigments (thanks Scott ) which are intended to end their journey through the printer by landing on your print paper or to be safely disposed when in residue form. Not so ! the bad news is that residue resins and pigments can be recycled back to the inner micro piezo nozzles as follows:A .print head to wiper bladeB .wiper blade to wiper blade cleanerC. wiper blade cleaner back to wiper bladeD .wiper blade back to outer print head in a random manner. E. outer print head back to micro piezo nozzles..no logic/order to the process either.(Returning resins/pigments are aerated to speed up hardening process...its random).2. Ink in the micro nozzles can be " attacked "by freshly coagulating pigments coming from above the print head ..coming down through the ink supply chain. If you don’t need orange or green colors try a 7890 maybe.. these (nozzles)may simply coagulate through ink under-use. llk can also coagulate if you don’t print b/w frequently... tip..vibrating the printer occasionally could help.3. Snapshot of Epson 7800 residue ink disposal method included.note there is no wiper blade cleaner in the chain. Just a gutter to collect gravitational residues from the blade. Gutter then drops ink residues directly (without physical contact), on to a felt blanket on the printer floor. ( little surprise that Epson likes to keep this cleaning method secret . however its safer than the 7900 disposal method )4. Clues were offered by Hal when he told Eric that Epson withdrew green from the market to rejig it for coping with under-use when printing. (probably a readjustment by adding extra lubricant like glycerol..or water..who knows)5. Mark…seem to recall that you had reservations about cleaning or replacing wiper blades earlier in the thread.so why not give Scott some praise for designing a lubricant system which up to now has been beyond the capacity of Epson to provide to its customers for the x900 models . I will not be "upgrading " to x900 until Epson includes me in the printer maintenance role as a partner and radically improves disposal techniques for ink residues as well.

Epson does have Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for the inks that they use in Epson 7900/9900. They do give some information about the amount of pigment versus the amount of solvent used for each ink.

Epson does have Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for the inks that they use in Epson 7900/9900. They do give some information about the amount of pigment versus the amount of solvent used for each ink.

I wrote about this about a year ago on another thread. The problem in looking at the MSDS is that we really don't know what the proprietary organics are. Even if you look at a the patent literature you cannot find out anything. It's likely that they are the resins. That being said, water is the most prevalent molecule in all of the ink formulations and the concentrations of glycerols (including ethylene glycol which is similar in structure) can vary depending on the ink color. The actual coloring agents is relatively low in concentration.

Hi MarK,It seems we both have similar Mac Laptop with two SSD Drives. Yes, it is a fast computer and Apple does not accept you modifying your computer under warrantee.

I am glad you have had such good experiences, but there are numerous others that have not quite had the same response and those are the people who go on the web to look for help.

Of course, the development of new technology brings all sorts of issues, but it is the responsibility of the manufacturer who deals with the public to be responsive. This is especially in the case of heads dying in the LLK channel of the new series printers and the excessive clogging. A college in Virginia called us for help. Their 7900 has been developing clogging in the LLK Channel and they have followed everything Epson told them to do. They will need to change the head and the repair is about $1,800. The professor was in shock. Now he has to acquire funding for the printer and a 3 year warrantee.

In general, when a printer is sold, the salespeople do not advise the client that they should take on the extended warrantee because of the expense of parts. The 9900/9890/4900 head was I believe $1,100 and has just been increase in price by $100.00.That repair of that printer will cost on the average $1,800. I personally know of no salesperson who explains that the head will clog more readily in dry climates and it is advisable to make sure that the printer is kept in a climate of about 30 to 40 percent humidity and in a temperature around 70f. The only advise I recall them saying to some of my clients, it is a good idea to run the printer and not let it sit unused for long periods. There is one major sales chain that advices their clients to use our cleaner when there is a problem, not to prevent a problem.

Decision 1 is the repair operation for Epson who is used when a printer is under warrantee and in need of repair. Generally, they do a good job. It took some time for them to learn how to repair the 9900 series. It took them over 8 days to repair my printer having an ink bay electrical failure. The problem is for people who live in rural areas where it is difficult for them to get service.

Epson has made great printers and for the price I can only compliment them. Many of our clients complain that they always are fast to say get a tech even when the fix maybe simple. They do not want to allow you to repair your own printer when out of warrantee. They offer no repair guidance. They restrict their service manuals from being distributed. They do not allow you to buy a replacement head. They also restrict you from setting head ID codes. I can only imagine how any of us would react if our car manufacturer was to say, we do not allow you to repair your own car or go to the mechanic of your choice or even use the gas, oil, and lubricants of your choice as well.

Hi Scott,As you know, the heads of these printers are in the realm of nano-technology. Yes, you can put any grade of gasoline through many automobile engines. It's not comparable to an x900 printer. As for the service manuals, they consider those to be proprietary for reasons that should be obvious, available to certain people on a need-to-know basis and under strict NDA. They are within their rights to do that. They are also within their rights to determine user access to components - indeed, how much equipment is there on the market with a warning "there are no user-serviceable parts in this product" or some such. I'm not passing judgment on any of this, I'm simply pointing out that there is nothing unusual or untoward about it.

The extended warranty is a pure unquantifiable insurance risk, because we don't know two fundamental things determining the value of the risks: (a) their various probabilites of occurrence and (b) the costs of the consequences if any of them were to occur. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know for sure that if we bought the warranty and were fortunate enough to never draw on it we spent a lot of money, and if we didn't buy it and misfortune fell upon our printers we are in for a lot of money and "shoulda" bought it. Otherwise, we are none the wiser. And it is a fact of life that for these printers, the print head is essentially the printer, so if it goes, the recovery costs are high; but the probability of it going??? No-one is saying; however, no matter how low it may be, when it happens to one of us, the probability was 100% and the cost significant. Now, as a rational evaluator of risk, let us pretend for a moment (and this is pretend) they were to give me information showing that the risk of head failure is very low, likely on the basis that only a small fraction of all those sold have ever totally failed. On that basis, given the high cost of the extended warranty I would probably decline it. And that may well have been a rational economic decision based on solid principles of risk evaluation; but then two months out of warranty my head fails. So I'm s.o.l. and it sucks. I don't know what else one can really say, unfortunate as these situations are. All we can do is try to manage the risk as best we can with the means available, and hope the basic quality is in the product to serve us well. And yes, people turn to web forums with their problems, much less so with their successes, so it is not likely the most objective source of reliable guidance on overall, "expected" (in a statistical sense) product performance.

This thread is starting to repeat itself. And you have to ask yourself why Epson problems feature many times more often than HP or Canon. Easy to say "there's more Epsons out there," but I wonder whether that's the full story.

This thread is starting to repeat itself. And you have to ask yourself why Epson problems feature many times more often than HP or Canon. Easy to say "there's more Epsons out there," but I wonder whether that's the full story.

You're right it is - probably because it's a Book of Records forum thread by now and there's probably not much left to say that any one outside of Epson would know or care to say. As to why Epson's ink flow issues appear more often than for Canon and HP, I think it has two explanations: (i) the relative number of Epson printers out there may indeed be very large (though I have no real information) and (ii) the technology - Epson makes us deal with clogs as and when they occur, while Canon's clogs "accumulate" until the heads need to be changed. The over-arching point may be however, the very large number of satisfied users who most likely don't contribute to these forums and constitute the "silent majority".

Your point about where ink collects is so true. Roland has a feature on the control panel that allows you to move the head all the way to the left where you can get under the head and clean it. They even produced a video on cleaning. If you take your head out of the printer you can see just how much Gunk attaches itself around the head. You should see what a head looks like that prints cotton fabric. A wiper should be cleaned often at least once a week and replaced more often than most Epson users have ever done. Many of our new clients tell us that they have never replaced or cleaned their wiper since they bought the printer. We used to clean our Mimaki Dampers twice a day. Clients who purchase Mimaki and Roland printers are usually advised to clean wipers constantly and even change dampers from time to time.

Regarding information on MSDS sheets: There is very little information you will obtain except for the type of Glycol that is being used. For instance, Ethylene Glycol in considered an unsafe material and is not accepted by some of our clients. My company for one does not use that Glycol. By looking at the CAS number you can find out what they are using, but not the true amount or even what the main ingredients that make up the so called magic of the ink are. They are usually listed as proprietary. There are numerous chemical that can be used in ink formulation in less than 3 or 2 percent including surfactants. It is a waste of time trying to find out what is in Epson’s Ink.

Not a troll post, but a comment on Canon ipf printers we have. We've calculated that having done printhead replacements, the cost per print, using 24" rolls and prints of all sizes but filling the roll width and moving to 17 " rolls for smaller prints, the cost per print of the printhead is about 60 cents. This is over thousands of prints on canvas.

Over that time we've left the machine on in sleep mode. Every so often it wakes up and either does an ink shake, checks temperature and humidity and very infrequently does a nozzle check. Except to change heads we've never opened any covers except to change rolls or put in new carts.

For us, this simplicity of operation has been very beneficial. It explains our curiosity as to why Epson is still so popular here.

Regarding information on MSDS sheets: There is very little information you will obtain except for the type of Glycol that is being used. For instance, Ethylene Glycol in considered an unsafe material and is not accepted by some of our clients. My company

Hi Doccolor

Glad you found some use from the bits and pieces i have posted...its nice of you to say that.My background is landscape photography and giclee printing for myself at this stage.i get a real kick from it .(thanks to joseph holmes i must say ) i live in the wilds of Connemara Ireland .i am a one man band and simply cannot afford service contracts.i am the ideal stool pigeon for testing Epson printers..this year i was faced with the choice of quitting to print or strip down both of my old GOOD Epson 7800 printers and learn fast..up to now it was run inks to stay alive...but i discovered (from my perspective only let me caution you ) that1 Epson is going towards perfection and away from practical matters2 Epson will help its customers greatly when it involves those customers more in day to day cleaning routines.3 Epson ( i believe) will redesign its printers casings so that we can # clean wiper blades effortlessly ( 7900 can...i leave case off ) #clean seals easily # lubricate park/spit pads effortlessly # stimulate ink pigments by inserting a spring mounted gadget under damper unit to vibrate ink pigment entering head # disconnect the closed circuit "cleaning system" which sends hard residue resins back up into the head.this disconnect can quite easily happen by forcing wiper blade through Epson "solution bath "as the blade returns to the print head. #Epson will remove its wiper blade cleaner # Epson will produce one master air seal to protect smaller seals on the printer head from air intake. # Epson will market different strength pigment inks for heavy or light printer users. #Epson will produce ink carts that are translucent...meanwhile i just reset and weigh them #Epson will profitably market specialised cleaner/lubricant solutions to assist its customers in their daily cleaning/lubrication routines. #Epson will educate its customers on the importance of daily maintenance..ABOUT MSDS of Epson inksFor the 7800 there is no problem picking up rough make up of k3 ultrachrome from Epson itself...what i found of interest is that the more pigment in the ink the more Epson uses more glycol /less glycerol in their cleaning solutions for the x800 printers...i can get their own cleaner solutions no problem..whats wrong for the 7900 ? also Epson told me that vivid majenta used in a 7800 instead of majenta would burn the head out in 6 months.....and there both Epson inks....so using ammonium/ isopropyl....simply green....windex....whatever ...i wonder is there a risk of damage....and why the heck does Epson not think of making some money for itself by setting up a new cleaning solution division within its empire...beats me !Thanks for listening

Roland has a feature on the control panel that allows you to move the head all the way to the left where you can get under the head and clean it.

To a degree that was also possible with the Epson 1000/10600, you had to remove the left cover for it and pull the power plug when the head was free, then move the head to the left manually. The Roland method would be a good feature for all wide format printers. Easy access to the capping station is more important though and that was a hell of a job on the 10000. But it had at least 3 wipers for a total of 6 channels where the x900s have 1 wiper for 10 channels.

. But it had at least 3 wipers for a total of 6 channels where the x900s have 1 wiper for 10 channels................................

And the wiper blade is 35 % the size of the x800 wiper blade ..made from a flimsy ,anorexic thin, piece of rubber....overworked of course....wont last long will it ?And the wiper blade is beaten up and stiffened relentlessly by a wiper blade "cleaner" which is covered in ancient resins that are meant to be left exactly where they land...except for the bits that get back on to the wiper blade again for another ride....At least the poor bent and bruised (and poker resin stiff by now ) little wiper blade can get its own back on those lovely juicy teeny wee air seals on the head ..aha ! Kick the cat...thats it !

ABOUT MSDS of Epson inksFor the 7800 there is no problem picking up rough make up of k3 ultrachrome from Epson itself...what i found of interest is that the more pigment in the ink the more Epson uses more glycol /less glycerol in their cleaning solutions for the x800 printers...i can get their own cleaner solutions no problem..whats wrong for the 7900 ? also Epson told me that vivid majenta used in a 7800 instead of majenta would burn the head out in 6 months.....and there both Epson inks....so using ammonium/ isopropyl....simply green....windex....whatever ...i wonder is there a risk of damage....and why the heck does Epson not think of making some money for itself by setting up a new cleaning solution division within its empire...beats me !Thanks for listening

The balance of ethylene glycol to glycerol is to address the carrying property of the aqueous solution so that the pigments are properly suspended and deposited. It's also possible that it optimizes the solution to minimize (note that I don't say eliminate) clogging. I'm very skeptical of the statement that the vivid magenta ink would 'burn out a 7800 head in six months.' With respect to head cleaning by users, this is somewhat analogous to Nikon's statement (at least in the US) that camera sensors should not be cleaned by users. Despite this many users do clean their camera sensors without difficulty or find a local expert to do so at a reasonable price. A high end Epson printer is in the same price range of a high end Nikon but it's difficult to get any information on how to do self maintenance on the printer. I personally think that this is unacceptable.

Alan, I'd have absolutely no hesitation cleaning a camera sensor, because the procedure and precautions are totally straight forward and the only moving part is removing the lens. Maintaining a printhead, especially given how the whole assembly is structured I think introduces more variables and therefore more risk. During the warranty, a company is perfectly within its rights to assess how much user intervention they are prepared to risk in terms of traffic on the warranty. In the case of Apple Computer for example it is ZERO. Undo a screw and your warranty is dead-meat. Maybe I exaggerate a little but not much. Where I do agree with you, however, is that printer manufacturers should publish at least enough guidance explaining to users how to physically clean and degunk the exterior of the printhead, the wiper assembly and related parts in that area which could affect clean performance - and provide cleaning solutions, so that those who wish to do so at their own risk at least have the necessary guidance and materials. I can see this being especially useful in situations where the service network is not very well represented in numerous areas, making the cost of service calls very high.

Mark, I'm on the same wavelength as you. There should be some simple user maintenance that the user can perform to keep their equipment working to specifications. Simple cleaning procedures should be made available. I'm sure that Epson have designed equipment so that this type of work can be performed pretty easily. It's interesting with respect to Nikon cameras is that in Japan, sensor cleaning kits are marketed to consumers. This is in contrast to the US where Nikon US does not recommend users do this.